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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900265">Colouring Between the Lines of Fate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VyKa21/pseuds/VyKa21'>VyKa21</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hello, Father [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Magic, Family Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore (mentioned), Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Severitus, Tom Riddle's Diary- inspired, almost forgot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:29:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,332</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VyKa21/pseuds/VyKa21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is brought to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place after his trial for the Patronus charm, and he's missing family.<br/>His longing activates some dormant blood magic, and a life-altering secret is revealed.</p><p>Ft. Lily Evans being a badass witch unto her dying breath, and Molly Weasley taking up that mantle after her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter &amp; Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hello, Father [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872007</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>269</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Colouring Between the Lines of Fate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I was watching that particular scene a few days back and a Youtube comment highlighted the initial dialogue. It made me itch for a severitus fic, and here we are~</p><p>A tribute to my favourite character in the whole Harry Potter franchise.</p><p>This also the other half of my MDZS detox, the first being 'Everything on Ice.'</p><p>Hope you like it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Colouring Between the Lines of Fate    (Severitus)<br/>
~ VyKa21<br/>
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p><p>“He’s not a child, Molly.” </p><p>“He’s not an adult either, he’s not James!” </p><p>“He’s not your son-”</p><p>“HE IS AS GOOD AS; who else has he got?” </p><p>“He’s got <i>me.</i>”</p><p>“How touching Black, perhaps Potter would grow up to be a felon just like his godfather.”</p><p>“You stay out of this, Snivellus.”</p><p> </p><p>“Professor Snape is a member of the Order?” Harry asked over the conversation pouring out of the Extendable Ears in George’s hand.</p><p>Ginny nodded, “Dad said he has been for a long while, probably since the first War against <i>him</i>.”</p><p>Harry went into thought, even as Hermione absently told Ginny, “It’s Voldemort, Gin.” Ron let out his customary shudder, craning<br/>
his neck alongside the twins to hear more of the conversation.</p><p>
  <i>Was he really a spy for Dumbledore? Or was he here to leak information to Voldemort instead? But he has continuously saved my life…</i>
</p><p>Harry kept thinking back to how Snape had been trying to save him from Quirell’s spell in first year, then in third year, standing before them protectively when Remus had transformed into Moony; he had even taken a hit or two for them.</p><p>He was snapped out of his thoughts when Crookshanks decided the Ear would make for a good snack, with the twins grumbling and Hermione reprimanding her clearly unrepentant cat.</p><p>After catching up with the others and receiving the disturbing news of the ‘weapon’ Voldemort was after over dinner, the kids were sent to their allotted rooms to turn in early. He’d seen the way Hermione had looked and most likely felt happy in the arms of one Viktor Krum, and he’d wished for a chance meeting with a kind stranger too, even if for half as long as Hermione and Krum had. </p><p>Then he’d seen Mrs. Weasley squabble with her troublesome twin sons and Mr. Weasley being a supportive dad and felt stupid for mourning an inactive love life when he’d lost something much more precious, and he couldn’t get it back, ever. Remus and Sirius were family, of course, but they were at best his Uncle and Godfather. He wanted his Mum and Dad. </p><p>So, so badly.</p><p>~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p><p>Harry blinked his eyes a bit, feeling something odd tugging at the back of his mind. It wasn’t something physical like the pain in<br/>
his scar – it was more like a forgotten memory trying to resurface. He waved away Hermione’s concerned look, focusing on the game of Exploding Snap in front of him. It was mildly uncomfortable but kept him tossing and turning even after the girls went back to their rooms and the lights were out, until he finally concluded that yep, it was one of those nights where he just<i>couldn’t</i> fall asleep. Which was great actually; he wasn’t too keen on traipsing down Voldemort’s mindscape, frequent as that occurrence was.</p><p>Checking if Ron’s snores were steady and the twins’ curtains were firmly shut, Harry grabbed his wand and invisibility cloak and tiptoed out of his room, intending to explore Grimmauld Place. He almost bumped into Kreacher, whose mutters were the only reason he noticed him in the first place.</p><p>Grimmauld Place <i>was</i> truly grim and old; there was a certain grimy veneer over the entire house that stemmed from harbouring generations of a  family of wizards that practiced and preached the Dark Arts. Harry knew for a fact that Mrs. Weasley and Remus had tried all varieties of household charms and laboratory spells, but the magical residue fuelled by the resentment and malice of the house’s late inhabitants was steadfastly retained by it.</p><p>Harry may not have the theoretical clarity that Hermione had, or the innate genius of the Weasley twins, or even a strategic mind like Ron’s. But the one thing he did have and relied fiercely on were his instincts – honed through eleven years of living with the Dursleys and another five years of dodging Bludgers, chasing maniacs and being chased by death; they had yet to fail him.</p><p>Those instincts were tingling as he made his way around the two stories of Grimmauld Place, cloak around him tight and the grip on his wand even tighter, the brush of his Dad’s invisibility cloak making him feel safe.</p><p>He came across a row of rooms on the second floor, and he could feel the lingering darkness thicken around him, swaddling him but not choking his air. <i>Or perhaps,</i> Harry thought, <i>I’m becoming too prejudiced.</i></p><p>Professor Lupin had explained in third year how magic is but a form of energy that changes with the intent of the wielder. Hence ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’ was a rather broad classification and magic as a subject required deeper study of both, seeing how one has to be mastered as weapon, and the other understood in order to defeat.</p><p>So when he followed the weird tugging in his head that said it was alright to be curious as long as he was cautious, it led him to the second last room in the corridor. The floorboards near it looked like they would creak, and Harry used his Seeker’s physique to tiptoe around with little to no sound. The door was ordinary, nothing indicating if it was someone’s old room or if it was a storeroom of some kind. Ever the Gryffindor, Harry put a cautious hand on the doorknob, and when nothing exploded or dislodged, he pushed it open. It was like the other guestrooms, just filthy with disuse and Kreacher’s surprising neglect, and it would have truly been an effort wasted if not for the strange purple glow coming from an unassuming bedside table drawer. </p><p>Taking his hood off, he squinted at the furniture. The moment Harry locked eyes directly at the source of the glow, it started brightening rapidly, a ball of quiet but coloured energy that soon enveloped the entire room in the light, the shades of almost-black a tad too familiar. <i>Was this Snape’s old room, back during the first War?</i> </p><p>The purple energy had now slowed its swirl, incandescent light feeling surprisingly cool where it fell on his skin. Not wanting to get too comfortable lest it was a trap, Harry pointed his wand at the drawer out of sheer instinct, absently thinking about the previous day’s trial and how he couldn’t use magic again until he was back in Hogwarts, when it shuddered dramatically, and right before his eyes, a little keyhole of sorts opened, the upper end a bit pointed. </p><p><i>Too</i> pointed, it seemed, as a tendril of lavender-hued light wrapped around his index finger and <i>tugged</i>, the tip pricking the sharp end and a red rivulet trickling down into the keyhole. </p><p>A surge of energy built up and Harry had his hands up in front of his eyes, wand out bracing for impact, <i>Protego</i> on his lips, when it all just... stopped.</p><p>Harry opened his eyes, and with it, the drawer opened too. A book with a well-worn cover lay there, still glowing faintly, and for a brief minute Harry wondered if he went through all this trouble in the wee hours of the night just for one of Snape’s greasy Potions’ journals. But as he carefully picked it up and flipped the first page open, his heart made a short-term home in his throat as every neat page, every beautifully-inked word, brought his life crumbling down as he knew it.</p><p>He was going to <i>throttle</i> a certain someone with his bare hands like a Muggle, magical torture curses be damned.</p><p>~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p><p>The last Order of the Phoenix meeting before start of the Hogwarts term was underway, with last-minute details about Auror allocations and inter-communication being finalised, just as the sun rose fully and the kids were to be woken up. </p><p>Molly Weasley was getting up to do just that, but the door to the meeting room flew open, startling everybody present.</p><p>Harry stormed in, ignoring Mrs. Weasley’s panicked squawking and Remus and Kingsley’s worried questions, eyes scanning rapidly until they zeroed on one occupant, onyx eyes looking blank at the proceedings, lip about to curl in familiar disdain.</p><p><i>Time to change that,</i> Harry thought grimly, feeling quite done with the shit in his life.</p><p>“Mr. Potter, must you disrupt matters of importance even outside of Hogwarts? Or do you believe the safety of the Wizarding World is beneath you?”</p><p>He held up a hand at Sirius, the gesture surprising him into shutting his mouth against whatever retort he had lined up, while Harry’s eyes had not left Snape. With a diplomatic little smile, Harry leaned back on his heels, one hand bracing himself on the back of Mr.Weasley’s chair. </p><p>“Yes, I do seem to have a lot of misconceptions about myself, <i>Father.</i>”</p><p>A hitch in breath, and the quiet turned to chaos as everyone tried to protest at that manner of address in varying tones of distress. Snape looked... scared, his pallor paler than usual, which was no easy feat. Eyes flighty, breaths uneven, fists clenched; he looked every inch a man whose biggest secret had been revealed. </p><p>And even as Professor Dumbledore arrived, yelling over the din, trying and failing to control the madness that had brought even the kids running downstairs in their sleepwear; Remus took the journal with shaking hands and cast sonorous to read out Lily Evans’ last spanner thrown onto the manipulations of one Albus-too-many-middle-names-Dumbledore and linking Tom Riddle Jr. to yet another wild twist in fate – Harry James Potter was actually Harry Jonquil Snape, blood adopted by James Potter who did not expect to live past the war, but wished for his legacy and vaults to go into the right hands. Lily used a lot of blood magic to seal the resemblance and even took help from the Goblins in concealing the true identity of her child from Voldemort and his followers. The Journal too wasn’t hand-written but a direct narrative straight from Lily’s mind, Hogwarts’ outstanding Charms and Potions NEWT student that she was. </p><p>Snape had information that the Fidelius Charm on Godric’s Hollow would be targeted, but he had no idea when and wasn’t privy to who the Secret-keeper was. Lily knew that despite Severus suspecting Sirius due to his association with Regulus Black, Peter had been acting suspicious. So she’d vetoed for Sirius to be their Secret-keeper. But Dumbledore, taking into account the lack of communication between Lily and Severus and their slight difference in trust, managed to convince James, his most faithful follower, to switch their Secret-keeper last-minute to Peter.<br/>
He’d wanted there to be blood-related protection on the infant Harry so that he could be kept with Lily’s Magic-hating Muggle relatives and later coddled into his own grandfatherly care; he’d wanted something to hold over the emotionally distraught, still-so-young Severus Snape to convince him to be his spy. The Greater Good, he called it and in her last moments, where the handwriting is sketchy and a bit faded, she’d had a realization that in order to end Voldemort once and for all, he planned to sacrifice Severus if necessary, and maybe even Harry, as ‘neither can live while the other survives’.</p><p>Cue a sympathetic and extremely enraged Molly Weasley holding disarmed, big defenders of the Light at wandpoint and asking some <i>very</i> pointed questions.</p><p>~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p><p>Severus Snape just stared at the little boy he’d fathered, he’d failed, he’d fought with and feared for.</p><p>How long would he have continued this charade for the sake of keeping him safe?</p><p> Just like his love for Lily – <i>always.</i></p><p>There was a little riot of reveals in the late Walburga Black’s living room, propelled by the journal of a protective mother who had channelled her love into one last act of defiance that was threatening Albus Dumbledore’s white hair into turning whiter.</p><p>Amid the accusations being hurled and barbed questions hitting targets, Harry approached the man he had hated for five long years; the man who despite that hate had loved him, borne his secrets carefully under the cover of Hogwarts’ cold-hearted Potions Professor and targeted him as he ought to have, staying distant through it all.</p><p>He stood next to his seat and ignoring the not-so-covert stares aimed at them, he sat down next to the still quite shocked Professor, and gave him a small smile.</p><p>“May I call you Father, Sir?”</p><p>Onyx eyes locked onto heartbreakingly familiar jade ones, and the man said to be colder than Hogwarts’ Dungeons enveloped<br/>
Harry in the warmest of hugs, and if it was slightly stiff, Harry paid it no mind. <i>We’ll get better with practice,</i> Harry thought as he wrapped his arms around his <i>Father</i> and gave a happy little sigh, muffled into dark, almost-black robes that were cool to touch but warm to feel. </p><p>And if someone noticed a slight violet glow encasing the reunited father and son; the boy’s hair lengthening and smoothening, the clothes sagging a bit more than usual – they made no haste to mention it.</p><p>~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p><p>Later that night, a lone figure Apparated to Godric’s Hollow, taking a brisk walk to the cemetery there. Some spells were cast silently and discreetly, making the visit too private despite the late hour. Placing wreaths of lilies on two of them, the person kneeled next to one, slowly running a reverent hand on the cool stone slab.</p><p>“Thank you, Lily. He knows now, and accepts it. I’ll keep him safe, I promise.” Thin lips touched chilly gravestone, once, gently.</p><p>A while later, those lips touched a sleeping boy’s forehead, the gesture inciting an unconscious smile from the recipient.</p><p>Sleep came easier that night.</p><p>One dreamt of jade eyes, red hair and a little boy clutching a toy broom.</p><p>Another dreamt of thoughts inked with magic and warm, violet robes.</p><p>Life had changed its hues now; even the murkiest of blues and deadliest of reds lightened and bled into a steady, springy stream of purple.</p><p>Their future looked a lot better when painted like that.</p><p> </p><p>~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p><p>“The colour violet inspires unconditional and selfless love.”</p><p>~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yeah... I'm not too fond of Dumbledore. Sorry, but I'm not sorry.</p><p>Comments and suggestions are welcome!</p><p>Thank you for reading. &lt;3</p><p>Vy~</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25445911">Silver</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythGirl95/pseuds/MythGirl95">MythGirl95</a>
    </li>
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